Thursday, July 22, 2010

I've gotten used to the lying, the fear-mongering, and the hypocrisy. It's the shamelessness that continues to baffle me. Rachel Maddow does a servicable job of recounting the damage (too bad Jon Stewart is on vacation this week):

As Roger Ebert just put it: "Fox News has more alibis for itself than a drunk-driving moonshiner."

Robert,all cable news has really low ratings. Even the biggest, FOX is only at 2 million per night, which makes watching cable news a fringe activity in this country. Also, of course, FOX is the channel that has most completely embraced the model of 'infotainment' where reality is shaped to reflect the needs of the audience.

Brownie, that's the whole point of Rachel's piece: if you are willing to lie all the time, and you viciously attack your political opponents based on those lies, and have no shame about completely changing your narrative OVERNIGHT for political gain, and 30% of the country uses you as their exclusive source for information, then it is possible to persuade the Government to do things that are wrong and inappropriate, just because they are worried about your callous disregard for reality and shameless quest for political power. FOX news is an arm of the Republican party, and no person interested in the truth should trust it for anything more than weather reports and sports scores.

That's the danger with Fox news, Rush Limbaugh, Tea Baggers and the others of that ilk that have impacted politics purposefully and negatively. Like a bully on the playground. They use intimidation, strong arm influence, propaganda and coercion to influence hasty adjudications. They have been so succesful in the past that it creates the possibility of this to happen more frequently now. 'Mission accomplished', so to speak. All under the guise or smoke screen of blaming the; "Liberal Media". Clever huh? You fell for it :-)

Politics aside, I thought Rachel Maddow was both unprofessional and childish in her response.

As for changing the subject, since when has any of the news media done their homework on stories? Journalism died a generation ago, and for any of you to think that MSNBC has some ethical high ground over FOX is either naive or blind bias.